Samizdat

Samizdat (pronounced sah-miz-daht or suh-myiz-daht)

(1) A clandestine publishing system (really, an ecosystem of sometimes connected but often independent systems) within the Soviet Union, by which forbidden works of literature were reproduced and circulated (also called “underground publishing”).

(2) A work or periodical circulated by this system (a samizdat publication).

1966: A direct borrowing from the Russian самизда́т (samizdat) (self-publishing), the construct being сам (sam) (self) + изда́т (izdát), an abbreviation of изда́тельство (izdátelʹstvo) (publishing house, publishing), the word samizdat coined as a jocular allusion to the compound name of official Soviet publishing organs (Gosizdát for Gosudárstvennoe izdátel'stvo (State Publishing House)).  Even among historians of the Cold War opinion must still be divided on whether samizdat remains a foreign term (and thus italicized) or has been assimilated into English (and thus not italicized); whichever is used, use within a document should be consistent.  A samizdatchik was a person involved in the production or distribution of samizdat.  In English language publications, the first known use of samizdat was in 1966 but the word clearly was in use in the Soviet Union (and presumably elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain) at least as early as the late 1950s and the clandestine production, copying and distribution of works banned by church or state authorities had been practiced for millennia.  Samizdat & samizdatchik are nouns; the noun plural is samizdats or samizdaty.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak’s (1890–1960), first edition, 1957.

The companion word was tamizdat, a direct borrowing from the Russian тамизда́т (tamizdát) literally “published there”, the construct being там (tam) (there) + изда́ть (izdátʹ).  That was a form of clandestine distribution in which writings published abroad were smuggled into the Soviet Union or other places behind the Iron Curtain.  Such works could be by foreign authors, by those in the Soviet Union or those in exile (self-imposed or otherwise); the definitional point was the publications were always banned.  A tamizdatchik was a person involved in the production or distribution of tamizdat although, as was the case with samizdatchiks, mere possession of a copy of something illicit could be enough for the security forces to apply the label; guilt by association often a popular legal device in authoritarian states.  The tamizdat tradition is less celebrated but there have been some notable titles.  Boris Pasternak’s (1890–1960) novel Doctor Zhivago was smuggled to Milan and there published in 1957 with Russian language copies soon appearing as tamizdats, swapped, bartered and sold in the vibrant underground trade in Moscow and Leningrad (the old imperial name Saint Petersburg restored in 1991).  The author was in 1958 awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature which didn’t best please the Politburo, compelling him to decline the award.  Times have changed and the novel is now part of the Russian high school curriculum.

Tamizdat Inc

Founded in 1998 and now based in Brooklyn, New York, Tamizdat Inc. is a NPO (non-profit organization) dedicated to promoting and facilitating international cultural exchange.  It appears to be focused on pop culture and originally was established to assist musicians from Central and Eastern Europe reach broader audiences, its activities including organizing tours by bands and staging music festivals.  Prior to streaming services going mainstream, Tamizdat for some years in the early 2000s ran a bricks & mortar music shop and CD distribution centre based in Prague (capital of the Czech Republic) but more recently it seems most involved with assisting those involved in some form of “art” to gain visas to visit the US.  Presumably, serious operations like the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) view Tamizdat Inc with the same sceptical eye they cast upon subversive outfits like the Vatican or the Falun Gong.

The Culture of Samizdat, Literature and Underground Networks in the Late Soviet Union (2020) by Josephine von Zitzewitz.

Although used mostly by historians and political scientists, samizdat is an accepted term in the jargon of literary theory and its use is not restricted to the Soviet Union or the states behind the old Iron Curtain.  Within the discipline, the term denotes certain “underground writing” (self-publication), circulated in typescript or copies produced on photocopiers or other duplicating machines; what (in this context) makes it samizdat is content expressing views proscribed by the state.  The word entered Western consciousness in 1966 when details emerged of the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial, conducted in Moscow the previous year.  Andrei Sinyavsky (1925–1997) was a literary critic but it was the material he wrote under the pseudonym Abram Tertz which saw Moscow brand him a “dissident”.  That what he wrote was critical of the communist regime was bad enough but his texts were smuggled out of the country and published in the West before returning as contraband, thereby circumventing the state’s strict (and bafflingly inconsistent) censorship regime.

Obviously guilty as sin, Mr Sinyavsky and fellow malcontent Yuli Markovich (1925–1988) were convicted of anti-Soviet agitation in a “show trial” and remarkably, history records them as the first Soviet writers to be convicted solely on the basis of their written words.  Plenty over the decades had been sentenced (sometimes to death) on charges in some way involving what they’d written, but Sinyavsky & Daniel served six years in a penal colony just for the words.  For the Kremlinologists, the most intriguing aspect of the trial was the prosecutor revealing the existence of a large body of underground literature circulating within the Soviet Union so the point of this “show trail” was not to secure a couple of convictions (rarely difficult in a Moscow court) but to act as a warning to other dissidents.  Being a dissident was not easy and one of the under-appreciated difficulties was that the state quasi-tolerated what came to be called “official dissidents”; those who were permitted to be critical… up to a point.  This approach functioned both within the country as a “safety valve” and, for Western viewers, an indication things were not as repressive as anti-Soviet propaganda claimed.  Unfortunately, as the political climate shifted, “official dissidents” could find what was tolerated one month could be judged unacceptable the next with consequences ranging from tiresome to serious.

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), first edition, 1968.

Thus the attraction of adopting a pseudonym and publishing abroad, an additional benefit being duplicating machines were freely available in the West and hundreds or even thousands of copies cheaply could be produced in a way impossible in the Soviet Union where such machines were rare and their use diligently monitored.  As a form of deterrence, the 1966 Sinyavsky–Daniel show trial was not wholly effective because in 1968 the nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) completed his essay Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence in which he described the anti-ballistic missile defense projects being explored by both Moscow and Washington as likely to increase the threat of nuclear war.  Initially distributed within the Soviet Union in samizdat, it was smuggled to the West and published in translation.  As a punishment, Sakharov was removed from his role in military research and restricted to studying theoretical physics.  Even more famous was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s (1918–2008) The Gulag Archipelago which, written between 1958-1968, was first published in Paris in 1968.  An exploration of the vast system of Soviet labor camps and penal colonies, the sprawling, three volume work included interviews, reports, statistics and an account of the author’s own experience as a Gulag prisoner.  In the West it remains the best known samizdat and prior to publication, the text in Russian did circulate in the Soviet Union although not until 1989 (in the days of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) was it openly on sale in some bookshops.

The audio equivalent of all this is magnitzdat, denoting material recorded on magnetic tapes that went on unlawfully to be circulated.  Originally, the audio tape recordings were of spoken text and took advantage of several quirks in the Soviet criminal code: (1) While citizens could not own printing presses or duplicating machines, they were permitted to own tape-recorders and by the mid-1950s, Japanese machines, although rare and expensive, had begun to appear and listening was often a communal experience, (2) although the production of more than six copies of a typewritten text was unlawful, there were no restrictions on duplicating recordings and (3) the only legal liability for the content of a recording accrued to those recorded, not those involved in production or distribution. The construct of magnitizdat was магнитофон (magnit(ofon)) (literally “magnetic tape recorder”) + изда́ть (izdát).  Because of the relatively small numbers of real-to-reel tape recorders available, behind the Iron Curtain, the printed samizdats & tamizdats had a much more profound and far-reaching effect but, in an indication of what might have been possible had the technology been available, by the late 1970s cheap, portable cassette tape players enjoyed wide ownership in Iran and the people around Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979-1989), then in exile in Paris, maintained an energetic programme of distribution to Iran of tapes containing his incendiary speeches against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980; last Shah of Iran 1941-1979).  Easily duplicated and shared within communities, the Ayatollah’s message spread probably at least as rapidly as would have occurred had he been allowed to broadcast on radio or television and the rest is history.

Lindsay Lohan, Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father) (2005), 2Crow Bootleg.

Technically of course, a magnitzdat was conceptually similar to a “bootleg” recording, a form which in the West enjoyed in heyday in the 1970s & 1980s.  The term “bootlegging” dates from the late eighteenth century when it was used by British customs and excise officers to describe the trick smugglers used to hide contraband in their large sea-boots.  Since then, it’s been applied variously including (1) the distilling, transporting and selling of unlawful liquor (2) unlicensed copies of software and (3) unauthorized recordings of music and film.  In music, bootleg recordings began to appear in some volume in the 1960s and originally were often from live performances.  Frequently created from tapes of dubious quality with little or no editing, these bootlegs generally were tolerated by the industry because they tended to circulate among fans who anyway purchased the official product and were thought of just a form of free promotional material.  Later, when things became more organized and bootleggers began distributing replicas of official releases, the attitude changed and for decades the music and software industries fought ongoing battles against bootleg copies (which in some non-Western markets represented in excess of 90% of software installations).

Broken English (1979) by Marianne Faithfull (1946-2025).

Marianne Faithfull undeniably was beautiful but before Broken English her discography had been a predictable pastiche of any number of “girl singers” of the 1960s, the music rarely original, usually melodic and inoffensive but never with an arrangement hinting her output could be thought “interpretative”.  Broken English startlingly was different and rarely has a repertoire better suited a “gin soaked” voice.  However there was one track with lyrics deemed in some places “obscene” (the words now would raise barely an eyebrow) so in those markets the album appeared with the offending track deleted.  That led to a lively trade in “bootleg” copies (ie those produced for sale in less censorious jurisdictions) and before long most regulators bowed to reality, allowing their citizens to hear Ms Faithful sing the words many likely would hear while walking along city streets.

While obviously there can in form be similarities in samizdats, tamizdats, magnitzdats and bootlegs, the motives for their production and distribution differ.  “Bootleg copies” of this and that are money-making devices that generate profit by evading copyright, thereby denying the payment of royalties to those who hold the IP (intellectual property) or distribution rights whereas the Russian trio existed to publish material proscribed by state censorship.  Behind the Iron Curtain, for those involved in the means of production or distribution, there could be a profit motive (especially resellers in the “secondary market” and beyond) but the primary rationale was to avoid the censor’s pen.  Although philosophers have for millennia discussed and explained the nature of the institutions such as organized religion and what would come to be called “the nation state” (and latterly, political scientists have with increasing levels of complexity added to the literature), operating in parallel with theoretical niceties such as “consent”, “distributive justice” and “social contracts” is “power”.  Politics, as it is practiced, was detailed by the Florentine diplomat Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, 1469–1527) in Il Principe (The Prince, 1532), a kind of “owner’s handbook” of power and its retention and its core dynamic is what’s now known as regime survival, an imperative which long predates Renaissance Italy and although tactics may vary, the strategy remains the same, whether in a besieged Constantinople in 1453, in the Führerbunker in 1945, in the Oval Office in 2021 or among Ayatollahs in Tehran in 2026.  Censorship is an important component in regime survival because if alternative thoughts are allowed freely to circulate, people might get ideas and princes, popes and presidents all well know where that may lead.

Court of the Star Chamber (1951), gouache on paper by Cecil Doughty (1913–1985).

Although created in the mid-twentieth century, the work is in the style of a "period correct" woodcut.  The Star Chamber was formed because of the courts of Common Law and Chancellery had become inefficient, rule-bound and susceptible to external influences and initially it functioned well but later (especially under the seventeenth century Stuarts) it became a tool of repression.

In the West, the notion of “freedom of speech” is a recent arrival; edicts banning “seditious and heretical works” were proclaimed in 1529 during the reign of Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) who shortly would change his mind about what constituted “heresy”.  Within a decade of the first proclamations, laws were passed requiring books must be licensed for printing by Privy Council or other royal nominees, an indication the printing press in its time was as disruptive an influence as the internet and social media would later prove; in moves that would be applauded by later Soviet governments, in England and elsewhere in Europe, severe restrictions were imposed on the importation of foreign books.  Had these measures worked as intended, political and intellectual life would have been very different but in England (as in Europe), underground and unlicensed printing presses were soon active and often highly productive.  By 1557, the Stationers' Company (an outgrowth of the London craft guild of printers) was granted a “charter of incorporation” which stipulated only members of the company (or others holding a special patent) were allowed to print any work for sale in the kingdom.  In 1586, the Court of Star Chamber introduced an ordinance mandating that no printing press might be set up in any place other than London or the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge, the point being that in those places the state possessed the infrastructure to supervise what was being produced.  As the Star Chamber was inclined to do, under the act of 1637 it imposed harsh punishments upon transgressors and even after the court was in 1641 abolished by the Long Parliament the repression not only continued but the consequences for illicit printing became more severe.  Remarkable as it sounds, under the rule of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658; Lord Protector of the Commonwealth 1653-1658), publishers and printers may have looked back on the administration of the Star Chamber as an enlightened period.  The puritanical Cromwell in 1655 actually banned all unofficial publications but this was found to create more problems than it solved and four years later the Rump Parliament permitted the printing of a limited number of licensed newsbooks but distribution was restricted.

So censorship was not invented by the Tsars or comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953).  The significance of the Stationers' Company’s charter was that structurally it created a regime strikingly similar to that which prevailed in the Soviet Union in which the entire publishing industry could be thought “the government printer”.  What members of the company were compelled to do was record prospectively in the Stationers' Register any publications they proposed to print, something which has made research difficult for historians because not everything recorded ended up being printed.  Nevertheless, the Register remains an important source document of literary activity in the era and although the original purpose had been to prevent the spread of seditious publications, lawyers began to use the entries as evidence when attempting to assert copyright.  That was at the time too novel a notion to impress the judges but the register form part of the template for the first English Copyright Act (1709), which provided the framework on which the rights of writers and publishers would be codified.  Lawyers who experienced the often futile task of arguing their cases before the Star Chamber would have found the Tsarist and Soviet models regulating publishing refreshingly familiar and concepts such as samizdat & tamizdat would have needed little explanation.

Bone Music by Stephen Coates.  The x-ray discs are now minor collectables and while all those decades what Russians paid most influenced by what was claimed to be "on the cut", buyers now especially value the best images, skulls among the more desirable.

The ever inventive Russian youth were early adopters of bootleg recordings and combined recycling with a unique form of magnitzdat.  Because the Communist Party was as scared of rock music as it was of tracts about Western democracy and human rights, such sounds were banned and damned as subversive, decadent, capitalist, imperialist etc; in an authoritarian state, the exact form of the damnation is less important than the fact some label has been applied.  So, rock albums were hard to get but in Soviet homes gramophones (record players) were common so all that was needed was the media.  That was found in the rubbish discarded by hospitals, x-ray images turning out to be an ideal material for cutting the grooves which could be played on a gramophone.   Known by a variety of terms including ribs, music on ribs, jazz on bones or bone music, although the first were produced as early as 1946, most date from the 1950s & 1960s, cut into 7-inch discs (the size of the old 45 rpm “single”).  The machines used to “cut the grooves” were reputedly old 78 rpm phonographs, modified by skilled technicians, trained by the state to do stuff in the service of socialism.  Because of the nature of the material, they had a short life (managing a dozen plays was exceptional) and the quality was (by the standards of commercially produced vinyl pressings) appalling but alternatives were scarce and the improvised recording were cheap, often selling for a few kopeks with only the most desirable bands attracting more than a ruble.

Bone music: A early form of a digital disc.

That so many discarded X-rays were available in a nation in which usually there were shortages of just about everything except Vodka, was a product of circumstances.  With the breakdown of public health systems in the immediate aftermath of World War II (1939-1945) at a time when close to 20 million soldiers and displaced civilians were moving between countries, an increase in the spread of tuberculosis concerned the authorities and the Soviet government, like many, embarked on a vast programme of chest X-rays.  As a public health initiative it was a success but it resulted in large libraries of X-rays being stored in hospitals.  Because these contained a silver nitrate substance, they were a fire hazard and, after a couple of conflagrations, a twelve month limit was imposed on storage so hospital administrators were happy to give their old stocks to anyone who asked.  So, the input cost of the raw material was zero and the production costs were marginal which meant that even if the retail unit price of a bone music cut was less than a ruble, with high volumes, it was by Soviet standards a lucrative business model.  Customer satisfaction however was variable because, bought on street corners, the audio quality was unpredictable as was the content; until played, a buyer couldn’t be certain what they’d bought.  Noting the trend, the government passed a law banning the home-production of recordings of “a criminally hooligan trend” but rock ‘n’ roll was here to stay.

Porch

Porch (pronounced pawrch or pohrch)

(1) In architecture, an exterior appendage to a building, forming an approach to a doorway, now usually with a roof which may be separate or an extension of that of the main structure; if walls are included, a porch is said to be “vestibule-like”.

(2) An exterior roofed gallery, often partly enclosed; a veranda.

(3) As “the Porch”, the portico or stoa in the agora of ancient Athens, where the Stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium and his followers met.

(4) Applied loosely (often in commerce, especially the real estate business), similar structures such as porticos, balconies, decks, verandas and such.

(5) In aerospace engineering, the platform outside the external hatch of a spacecraft.

1250–1300: From the Middle English porche (covered entrance; roofed structure, usually open on the front and sides, before an entrance to a building), from the Old French porche (porch, vestibule), from the Latin porticus (covered gallery, covered walk between columns, arcade, portico, porch), from porta (city gate, gate; door, entrance), from the primitive Indo European root per- (to lead, pass over).  In the Old English the Latin form was borrowed as portic.  By the late fourteenth century, a porche was understood as a “covered walk or colonnade on the front or side of a building”; by the early 1830s it was used in the US for the structures described in the UK as verandas.  Porch and porchful are nouns, porchless, porchlike & porched are adjectives; the noun plural is porches.

Porch swingers.

Vice-Admiral William Raborn (1905-1990; Director of Central Intelligence, 1965-1966, left) and Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; POTUS 1963-1969, right), sitting on porch swing on the porch of LBJ's boyhood home near Stonewall, Texas, 1965.  Admiral Raborn was a gallant sailor with a fine record but wholly was unsuited handling the politics demanded in the role of heading the CIA and served as the nation's chief spy for little more than a year.  If LBJ appears happy, it's likely because recently he'd been elected POTUS in one of the largest landslides recorded and the troubles caused by the war in Vietnam have yet to consume his presidency.

Some variants of porch are obvious: A “back porch” is a porch at the back of a structure (typically a house) while a “front porch” is at the front; any building with a porch may be described as “porched” (used usually as a modifier).  In architecture there are also what might be called “side porches” but the term is not in general use.  A structure is “porchless” if designed or built without a porch while an “outporch” is a now archaic term meaning “an exterior porch”; it’s of minor interest to historians of architecture because it suggests there was a time free-standing structures also were thought of as porches.  A “porchful” is “the quantity of stuff said to “fill a porch”, those items typically being “porch chairs” or “porch swing” (a seat with armrests and a back, built usually for two, and suspended from the ceiling with hooked chains (or cables) enabling it to rock back & forth.  Collectively such items could be styled “porch furniture” although “patio furniture”, “deck furniture” & “outdoor furniture are now in more common use.  All these pieces might be illuminated by a “porch light” (also as “porch-light” & “porch lamp”, a wall or ceiling-mounted light, often fitted with a protective grill).  Once such accessories have been placed, that constitutes one’s “porchscape” and although tables are not uncommon on larger porches, the term “porch table” seems not to be a thing.

A house with “wrap-around porch”, part of which (left) has been converted to a “sunporch” by the addition of glass panes.

The term “porchway” did not (as the name might suggest) describe an “extended or elongated porch” but was simply a synonym of porch; use is now thought archaic.  A “snow porch” was an enclosed but un-heated structure which was a feature in arctic areas or other places with very cold climates.  Snow porches were accessible from within a dwelling and typically used as storage for firewood and such, the advantage compared with an outside shed being those within didn’t have to walk outside in the cold to fetch a load.  Unlike a “sunroom” (a windowed room optimized for receiving natural light), a “sunporch” was a conventional porch to which windows (sometimes able to be opened) had been added.  In nautical use, a “wetporch” (also called a “moon pool”) was a feature in the hull of a vessel used for lowering equipment into the sea below.  Although used in a number of sub-surface environments and underwater habitats, the structures are most associated with off-shore mining and oil extraction, frequently seen on marine drilling platforms.

117 South Hervey Street, Hope, Hempstead County, Arkansas.

This is the house in which Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) spent the first four years of his life.  In June 1997, it was opened to the public as President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site which was a little opportunistic, his actual birth happening at Hope's now-demolished Julia Chester Hospital, the site now occupied by a funeral home.  The house's porch would be called a “front porch” and although when young Mr Clinton doubtless spent much time “on the porch”, later in life he didn't always “stay on the porch”.

A variant style was the stoop (raised open platform before the entrance of a house, approached by steps and thus neither a veranda nor a porch) and elements of the concept can be seen even in the dwellings uncovered in archaeological digs of prehistoric settlements but stoops seem first to have been so named in the mid eighteenth century to describe the feature in wooden houses in North America (including Canada which shared many of the building styles of the north-eastern US).  Stoop was from the Dutch stoep (flight of steps, doorstep, threshold), from the Middle Dutch, from Proto-Germanic stap- (step).  The Dutch form evolved in South African English as stoep, first recorded in 1797 although oral use may pre-date this.  Stoep was an element of the slur “stoep-sitter” which described a “habitually idle person who spends all day lounging on his stoep”.  Despite being a South African coining, it seems not to have been directly exclusively towards the non-white population, unlike the equivalent form from the US: “porch monkey” (a lazy black person characterized as idling away the hours sitting on a porch).  A modern coining was “porch pirate” (a criminal who practices “porch piracy”, stealing from porches packages delivered by a courier).  Although not a new class of crime, instances have soared with the increasing popularity of on-line shopping and the pattern seems mostly to be opportunistic; porch pirates driving around high-income neighborhoods and stealing whatever cartons are observed, a risky approach in the age of ubiquitous domestic CCTV systems.  However, law enforcement agencies have revealed their analysis indicates some porch piracy may be facilitated by “inside information” with porch pirates “tipped off” (by those somewhere in the supply chain) about desirable or high-value deliveries.

What used to be Standard Christian church architecture.  A narthex is a particular type of porch, many churches having a narthex and one or more porches. 

In church architecture, although Christian churches often had one or more porches, a special case was the narthex, an enclosed passage at the west end of a basilica or church, usually at right angles to the nave and located between the main entrance and the nave.  Theologically (and historically, thus socially), the significance of the narthex in many early Christian and Byzantine basilicas & churches was as well as being a conventional “lobby area”, it was place penitents were required to remain.  Although the archaeological record suggests there may have been some early churches with annexes or even small separate structures located nearby which fulfilled the latter function, narthexes seem quickly to have been integrated.  That means that structurally and architecturally, a narthex was part of the building but theologically was not, its purpose being to permit those not entitled to admission as part of the congregation (mostly catechumens and penitents) nevertheless to hear the service and (hopefully) be encouraged to reform their ways and pursue communion.  For ceremonies other than services, the narthex was otherwise a functional space, the church’s baptismal font often mounted there and in some traditions (both Eastern & Western) worshipers would sometimes anoint themselves and their children with a daub of holy water before stepping foot in the nave; some branches of the Orthodox Church use the narthex for funeral ceremonies.  There were also architectural variations in the early churches which persisted in larger building and cathedrals, the narthex divided in two, (1) an esonarthex (inner narthex) between the west wall and the body of the church proper, separated from the nave and aisles by a wall, trellis or some other means and (2) an external closed space, the exonarthex (outer narthex), a court in front of the church façade with a perimeter defined by on all sides by colonnades.

In the Western Church, reforms removed the requirement to exclude from services those who were not full members of the congregation which of course meant the narthex technically was rendered redundant.  However, the shape churches had assumed with a narthex included had become part of Church tradition so architects continued to include the space, both as part of the nave structure and something semi-separated.  They attracted a number of names, borrowed mostly from secular buildings including vestibule, porch, foyer, hallway, antechamber, anteroom, entrance, entry, entryway, gateway, hall, lobby, portal & portico, the choice dictated sometimes by local tradition, sometimes by the nature of construction and sometimes the choice seems to have been arbitrary.  In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the esonarthex and exonarthex retained distinct liturgical functions, some rituals terminating in the exonarthex while services still exclusively penitential services are usually chanted in the esonarthex.  In dialectal northern English, the casual term for the penitents forced to remain in the narthex was “the narts”.

A example of a portico: 1500 San Ysidro Drive, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.  Lindsay Lohan livered here for a while during “troubled starlet” phase.

Because there are so many ways porchlike structures can be described, word nerds with a fondness for architecture do like to correct the linguistically sloppy.  In a diary note of 28 June, 1954, documenting an evening in the British Embassy in Washington DC, Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) doctor (Lord Moran (Charles Wilson, 1882-1977; president of the Royal College of Physicians 1941-1949, personal physician to Winston Churchill 1940-1965) recorded telling his patient: “I hope you did not get cold sitting on the balcony in the chill night air.”  “Portico, not balcony, Charles.” he was corrected with a “mischievous smile”.

Porte-cochère of the Jing An Shangri-La Hotel, Shanghai, PRC.  This porte-cochère features what may be the ultimate porch light.  Such lighting structures have been made possible by LED (light emitting diode) technology; before LED's such a thing would have been too maintenance-intensive because of the limited life of bulbs or tubes. 

If a portico sits above a space where vehicles draw up for passengers to alight it becomes a porte-cochère, something now most associated with hotels or the forecourts of commercial buildings.  If a walkway is of any length with a roof supported by rows of pillars, that is a colonnade.  The car is a Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W221, 2005-2013, specifically, a “facelift” version (2009-2013)).  A special version of the W221 (S 300 L) was produced for markets in the Far East which combined the LWB (long wheelbase) platform with the 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) V6; it was essentially a LWB version of the S 280 (which also, despite the name used the 3.0 V6) sold in many other markets.  The S300 L was produced for the hotel trade and other operators of limousines who didn't want either thirsty V8s or V12s or the less refined diesels.

Lindsay Lohan on a balcony.  Although in general use the terms for such structures are applied loosely, in architecture, a balcony is accessible structure extending from a building and without roof.  Even if a balcony party is covered by a small eave, it is still not a porch.

A portico is best described as an “architectural porch leading to the entrance of a building” so not exactly a “big porch” although most tend to be large scale.  A noted feature of the buildings of Antiquity, a portico is defined by having a roof structure atop a walkway and although many architecture guides insist this must be supported by supported or enclosed within walls, a roof protruding from a building with no such ground-based anchorage (a favourite trick of architects in the mid-twentieth century) can be thought a portico if there’s some sort of walkway beneath.  The essential feature is the provision of shelter from the elements.  Those seeking a bit of visual grandeur (not only the McMansion crew) sometimes will add a pediment (a triangular upper part) atop but architects caution this can look absurd or pretentious on smaller structures because the sense of proportion works best at scale.

The colloquial phrase “hard dog to keep on the porch” is a lament used (perhaps often resignedly) by women of their husband’s or boyfriend’s chronic infidelity, describing men who are unfaithful and generally “difficult to keep an eye on.”  Although long in idiomatic use in the Southern US, in 1999 it came to wider attention when used by crooked Hillary Clinton of her husband, serial philander Bill Clinton.  Crooked Hillary must have picked up the expression while living in Arkansas; she began her ascent of the political and financial ladder by marrying Bill Clinton and with every election of him there as attorney-general (1977-1979) or governor (1979-1981 & 1983-1992), voters received a free copy of crooked Hillary.  When he became POTUS, she remained part of the package as FLOTUS 1993-2001, the consensus among political scientists that “he’d never have made it without her and vice-versa”.  Wives often of course do sometimes leave husbands who refuse to “stay on the porch” but crooked Hillary stayed and that was a defensible decision because, like many transactional relationships, the choice of “stay or go” is a thing of cost-benefit analysis; in a marriage, like most of life, for everything you do there’s a price to be paid.  

Problem-solver crooked Hillary finds a solution.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; FLOTUS 1993-2001, far left), Chelsea Clinton (b 1980; FDOTUS 1993-2001, centre left), Bill Clinton, centre right) and Buddy (1997-2002; FD²OTUS 1997-2001, far right), strolling over the White House lawn, prior to a two-week vacation at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, 18 August 1998.  Unfortunately, crooked Hillary's expectation she'd found a companion loyal enough to “stay on the porch” wasn't realized, Buddy killed in a road accident outside the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York after running off to chase a car (though the vehicle wasn't one of the rare Monica 560s).  Whether to this day crooked Hillary blames her husband for “giving Buddy ideas” isn't known but certainly, he set the dog a bad example. 

What Can I Say (1983), original vinyl pressing by Gail Davies.  Record store staff weren’t always fastidious when applying the adhesive promotional stickers.

South of the Mason-Dixon Line, the expression must also have had some currency in the form “hard dog to keep under the porch” which indicates, at least in some cases or places, the particular significance of the architectural space was roof rather than floor.  The C&W (Country & Western) song You're a Hard Dog (To Keep Under the Porch) was co-written by Susanna Clark (1939–2012) and the extraordinarily prolific (credited with over 4000 C&W songs) Harlan Howard (1927-2002); it was first recorded by Gail Davies (b 1948) and released on What Can I Say (1983), her fifth studio album (a question mark not used in the album’s title).

Porch joke

An unemployed man went door-to-door, seeking jobs.  Impressed by the work-ethic, after agreeing an hourly rate, one resident handed him a brush and two large cans of green house-paint, telling him: “You can go and paint the porch out back.”  Three hours later the man returned and said: “I done finished the painting mister and I done a good job but I swear to you sir, that ain’t no Porsh, it be a Ferrari.”  In the original German, Porsche is pronounced with two syllables (Paw-shuh), not the sometimes heard, single syllable Porsh.  In German, the final “e” is pronounced as a short uh.

Some paint required: 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial, as sold (top left) and on-track in period (top right), a fire-damaged 1972 Dino 246 GT, by Ferrari (bottom left) and a 1972 Dino 246 GT in Medium Green Metallizzato over Nero leather (bottom right).  It's believed the factory finished only 21 of the 2,295 246 GTs coupés or 1,274 246 GTS spyders (targas) in Medium Green Metallizzato but another shade of green, Verde Medio Nijinsky, was rarer still, only three of those leaving the line.  The fire-damaged Dino was advertised for sale at US$129,500 and was sold although the price paid was not disclosed.  The wrecked 500 Mondial (the second built and one of 13 examples with Pininfarina spider coachwork) at auction in August 2023 realized US$1.875 million.  It has yet to resurface, restored or otherwise.

A classic Queenslander with the porches the locals tend to call verandas.  Many Queenslanders were built on stilts: (1) to encourage natural cooling, (2) as a form of flood mitigation, (3) to facilitate easier pest and termite control and (4) to make hilly sites adaptable to house construction.

The term “vernacular architecture” entered the jargon of the profession in 1964 after being coined by Austrian-born US architect Bernard Rudofsky (1905–1988).  It describes indigenous designs or methods of construction that evolved organically to suit local climates, available construction materials, social traditions and specific human needs.  In Queensland, Australia, the signature “vernacular architecture” was and remains the “Queenslander” although they’re less common than in their heyday.  In its classic form, a Queenslander can be imagined as a “house with a wrap-around porch” although the local term has long been “veranda”.  At scale, the style seems to have emerged in the 1840s as the optimal way, for a given footprint, to maximize air-flow and reduce internal temperatures, things of consequence in the sub-tropics and, in the age before electricity (let alone air-conditioning) much appreciated by British & European migrants from more temperate, less humid regions.  Much of Queensland also was subject to hard rain and the verandas provided expansive living, eating and even sleeping spaces which could be used rain, hail or shine.  Snow and ice rarely was an issue.

The Erechtheion and the Caryatid Porch

The Erechtheion on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece.

One of the world’s most famous porches is the most striking feature of the Erechtheion (from the Ancient Greek Ἐρέχθειον (Erékhtheion)), an Ancient Greek Ionic temple-telesterion on the north side of the Acropolis, dedicated to the goddess Athena.  Built late in the fifth century BC, the Erechtheion was one of the first major projects following the devastation of the Greco-Persian Wars, the re-building of the Acropolis thus vested with all the symbolic ambition of a “civilization reborn”.  Given that, while the mathematically precise lines of the Parthenon impart a projection of order, rationality, and imperial confidence, the Erechtheion seems architecturally anarchic but it too was a piece of messaging, preserving ancient, sacred traditions within the new Classical architectural.  Unlike so many of the neat, consistent, often symmetrical structures which have survived from Antiquity, the Erechtheion is an architectural outlier because the design needed simultaneously to solve several political, religious and topographical problems.  Even today, it would be a challenge on the site to fulfil the demands while achieving the symmetrical perfection normally associated with Classical Greek temples.  For those reasons, anyone undertaking a tour of Roman and Greek ruins would, on first sight, find the Erechtheion startling, the look fragmented and seemingly so improvised many might assume additions have over the years been “tacked-on”.  The irregularity was deliberate, the location not being dedicated to a single deity; as well as honoring King Erechtheus, the architects were compelled to incorporate several ancient cult sites and sacred objects associated with Athena, Poseidon, and a grab-bag of local heroes and ancestral cults.

From the right angle, on the right day the Erechtheion can make a memorable photograph.

Mostly though, despite the name, the myth most celebrated was the legend of the site being the place where Athena and Poseidon competed for patronage of Athens, dedicated cultists holding the soil contained physical remnants of the epic contest including a sacred salt-water spring, Poseidon’s trident mark etched in the rock and Athena’s olive tree.  Because these relics of the past were in architecturally inconvenient places, the structure of the Erechtheion had to be “built around them”, thus precluding the simple rectangular floor plan and associated motifs which are such a marker of the temples from Antiquity.  The topography was also significant, the Acropolis rock beneath sloping sharply, meaning the surface was uneven.  As a piece of civil engineering this could of course have been levelled (if one had enough time and slaves, mountains could be moved) but that would have disturbed the relics so the work proceeded on what was a most irregular surface.  That made construction more of a challenge but did result in one of Antiquity’s most striking temples, the east and west sides at different heights, the interior chambers located on floors and varied levels and porches are placed asymmetrically, one consequence being it emerging as a complex of interconnected sanctuaries rather than the more familiar, single unified hall.

Within are several shrines, the eastern section dedicated to Athena Polias (Athena of the City), while the western portions were associated with Poseidon-Erechtheus and hero cults (best thought of as “best supporting actors” in Academy Award (Oscar) terms) meaning the entrances and their associated porches and portici served different ritual functions.  Although the layout and form were dictated by circumstances, in many ways, what was done proved a harbinger for much of public architecture in the centuries to come as the shape of “multi-function” buildings began increasingly to include physical segregation between spaces in both the horizontal and vertical with separate provisions for ingress and egress.  So while not “geometrically pure” in the Greek way, there’s an organic charm to the Erechtheion although Athenian citizens upon a first sight must have thought it peculiar or even weird architecture; the “shock of the new” is not unique to modernity.

The Caryatid Porch, the Porch of the Maidens.

The structure’s most famous and oft-photographed feature is the south porch, supported by a half dozen sculpted female figures: the Caryatids.  Caryatids was from the Middle French cariatide, from the Latin caryatides, from the Ancient Greek Καρυάτιδες (Karuátides), the noun plural of Καρυᾶτις (Karuâtis) (a priestess of Artemis, female figures used as bearing-shafts), from καρυατίζω (karuatízō) (dance the Karyatid festival dance) from Καρύαι (Karúai) (a town in Laconia with a temple of Artemis and the site of festivals in her honor).  The orthodox etymology is disputed by some scholars but the literal translation of karyatides is “maidens of Karyai” (an ancient Peloponnese settlement) and the young ladies from there were legendarily beautiful & healthy (and thus ideal “breeding stock”, good genes then as sought in mothers as they were in livestock).  In the language of architecture, caryatids were sculpted female figures used as supports in the manner of a column or pillar.  By necessity of physics, most caryatids supported the entablature (all of that part of a classical temple above the capitals of the columns; includes the architrave, frieze, and cornice but not the roof) on the head rather than the raised arms often seen in free-standing statutes, this done for reasons of structural integrity rather than aesthetics although it was a nod also to the notion of the girls of Karyai often being depicted as a canephora (basket-bearer), carrying to feasts of the goddesses Athena and Artemis fruits, nuts or sacred objects in woven cane baskets they placed on their heads.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece.

The Parthenon is the classic example of the Greek temple and more representative of the type than the Erechtheion.  It was proto-second wave feminist comrade Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 1949-1976) who reminded Chinese men “Women hold up half the sky” although he made the famous remark in 1968 at the height of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) which makes for an amusing historical juxtaposition.  Still, it does suggest that even if contemporary Athenians might have thought the Erechtheion a bit weird, the sight of a half-dozen young ladies holding up a roof built by a culture which was patriarchal (as was then the way) would have pleased the comrade Chairman who’d have felt assured the architects were good Maoists, the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) first constitution (1954) implying gender equality in Article 85 (Citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law) and made explicit in Article 86 (Citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law) & Article 96 (Women in the People's Republic of China enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, social and domestic life).  Reading the PRC’s 1954 constitution, it clear the place was as much as a paradise for citizens as the Soviet Union must have been based on comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) 1936 constitution although in Article 86 of the PRC’s document it was mentioned rights could be denied to those the state declared “insane”, a clause which proved handy over the years, as did a similar provision in the USSR.

The Parthenon, Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee.

Designed by architect William Crawford Smith (1837–1899), the Parthenon which stands in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee, was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.  A full-scale reproduction of the original, it's now an art museum and in the Treasury Room are displayed plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles, cast from the original sculptures.  In the nineteenth century, Nashville was one of a number of cities around the world often styled "the Athens of the South" and this doubtless had some influence on the choice of the building as the exposition's centrepiece but while some of the other structures erected for the event were in the style of buildings from antiquity, the Parthenon was the only one to use exact dimensions.  The 1897 structure was intended to last only for the duration of the exposition and was thus built with plaster, wood & brick but such was the local support for its retention it was left standing, soon beginning to deteriorate.  By 1920 however it was a noted tourist attraction and had become accepted as a feature of the city so, on the same foundations, it was rebuilt in concrete, the project completed in 1931.  Concrete however doesn't possess the same qualities of durability as granite and marble so for the replica to maintain its appearance and structural integrity, progressive replacements of components will be required, engineers noting the essentially modular nature of the construction means it may never need wholly to be re-built.  If it endures long enough, it may end up as something of a Ship of Theseus.

The new headquarters of the state media’s China Daily during construction.  When finished if looked less confronting but one can see why the President Xi knew there had to be a good, hard crackdown on “weird architecture” being erected.

Much in the PRC has of course changed since comrade Chairman Mao’s time although gender equality remains constitutionally entrenched and that no women ever have made it to the Politburo’s ruling Central Committee may simply reflect them not trying hard enough, after all, during all those decades the One-Child Policy (1980-2016) was in effect, it’s not as if they could complain about the demands on their time made by raising a large family.  Still, the spirit of “Women hold up half the sky” must remain current thought in Beijing but whether President Xi Jinping (b 1953; General Secretary of the CCP & paramount leader of the PRC since 2012) would have approved of either the maidens of the Caryatid Porch "holding up all the roof" or the Erechtheion’s many other architectural idiosyncrasies may be doubtful.  As early as 2014, not best pleased by the stylistic exuberance seen in China's recent skyscrapers, Mr Xi called for an end to what he called “weird architecture”, telling planners buildings should be “suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye” rather than “oversized, xenocentric & weird”.  It might be concluded that while he’d have admired the elegant simplicity of the lines of the Parthenon, Mr Xi would have used of the Erechtheion the same critique he may (in words echoing an earlier critic of aesthetics) have levelled at what he was seeing on the Beijing skyline: “muddle, chaotic, dissonant, confused and intentionally ugly”.  China’s architects he may have accused of building stuff that was “weird” but, well-skilled at reading between the CCP's lines, they’d have understood they’d just been labeled “formalists”.  Carefully, they took note.

Now replicas but, thousands of years on, still doing the job.

Although at the time the caryatids were a highly unconventional addition to a major temple, as an architectural motif, they were not unique as replacements for columns or pillars, the later male versions being the telamon or atlas; unlike the caryatids, the male analogues sometimes were carved on a vast scale.  Nor was the structural technique only anthropomorphic, roofs sometimes supported by renderings in the shape of swords, serpents, fish or other wildlife although what some Instagrammers may not realize is the figures today dutifully holding up the roof of the Erechtheion’s Caryatid Porch are immaculately rendered reproductions, the originals safely preserved as displays in the Acropolis Museum except for one which sits in the British Museum.  That one was “obtained” by Lord Elgin (1766–1841) during his expeditions to Greece between 1800-1803 when he “purchased” (disputed by the government of Greece which suggests something like “plundered”) what came to be known as the “Elgin Marbles”.